Monday, February 7

Superbowl Wrap-Up

We had a special event in town last week: The National Football League had their championship game. It is such a big game they refer to it as the ‘super’ bowl. The entire city was transformed into something interesting that gave all of us a story to tell. Here is mine:

Monday

Came home, post-call and slept. Stayed in and watched Wet Hot American Summer. Laughed.

Tuesday

Orthopedics clinic: While looking at a pelvic X-ray, a female nurse points to the outline of the patient’s large penis. The female doctor tells her sternly that the penis will point to the side of the patient’s injury. I concur. “It’s referred to as Hardwick’s sign,” She believes us.

Met Cecil at Mossfire Grill for ‘$3 martinis.’ Drank 3 Gibsons. Went to a series of dive bars looking for karaoke.

Ended up switching to beer, then to scotch.

Never found karaoke. Got home late.

Wednesday

Woke up early, hungover.

Clinic all day with Doctors Pasteur and Osler. Snoop Dog at hospital visiting sick children.

Artwalk downtown: This happens the first Wednesday of the month anyway, and is usually fun. Beer and wine and snacks as you wonder around businesses displaying works from local artists. Got home late.

Thursday

Woke up early. Evaluated patients in the pre-operative clinic, lunch, pulmonary clinic in afternoon. Had an 18 year-old patient who was in a persistent vegetative state after a near drowning. Felt sad.

Meet Yuval and Cecil downtown and go to concert: Kanye West & Big Boi of Outkast. Cecil gets us in clubhouse: Much drinking, schmoozing with folks from L.A. Have not had this much fun in Jacksonville in a long time. Well… ever.

On the way back to the car we see a lot of Eagles fans. This is the first reminder I have of how disgusting Eagles fans are.

Back in Miami, I had season tickets for the Dolphins. Now, rivalries do exist. For example, the Jets and the Dolphins always tease one another. My Favorite sign they made read “The Dolphins Suck and Marino Swallows.” But there was usually a certain tongue in cheek about everything. Eagles fans seem to lack any sense of humor about anything.

Eagles fans seem to think ‘fuck’ is part of an article of speech. It precedes every noun they say. Apparently, in the grade schools in Philly instead of ‘a,’ ‘an,’ and ‘the,’ they learn ‘a-fucking’ and ‘the-fucking.’ Such overuse of the word should diminish the vitriol with which its said, but for them, oddly, it seems increased. They treat people as if someone has stuck a pinecone up their ass and no one will tell them who did it.

Whenever the dolphins played the Eagles, there were a huge number of fights. Mean fights. I’ll admit fights would occur at games throughout the season. But at Eagles games, there were always fights and always a lot of them. (Fun Fact: There is actually a jail and a courtroom in the Eagles home stadium. To my knowledge they are the only NFL team with such a distinction.)

They are the only fans that I dislike. But I figured they would (1) be in good spirits and (2) be better behaved. I was (1) right and (2) wrong.

Got in street fight, a knife was pulled, but my dance moves were fresher than theirs. Got home late.

Friday

Woke up early. Went to Urgent Care clinic. All my patients had complex educational/social issues that took a lot of time and effort to solve. An intern offered to see one of my patients, but he ended up creating a lot of extra work for me. Frustrated, I head home.

Toph in from Atlanta. Go to Gene’s seafood and have “grouper French bake.” The French sauce, I find out, is a 50-50 mix of cream cheese and mayo. I asked for butter for my potato because I could only find Country Crock on the table. The waitress helpfully brought some more Country Crock. When I tried to clarify that I would like butter, she looked at me like the RCA dog, ear cocked to one side and nose scrunched up.

We met Cecil downtown at the ‘Superfest.’ Cecil is the master of thrift and has brought a case of beer with him. It would never occur to me to do this, but the stands are charging six dollars a bottle, so he is saving us a tremendous amount of cash. Cecil handed me a beer, and as I twisted the cap, the fireworks started. After the fireworks were over, we waited for about an hour for T-Bone to show up with more beer. We walked through the festivities toward the East Bay Club, one of many cool nightclubs that were built last Tuesday and will be returned to empty storefronts this Tuesday. A friend of mine and Toph’s got us through the door, bypassing the large line. We hung out with New Yorkers most of the night. Got home late.

Saturday

Woke up late, hung out, went to brunch at The Brick, had a bloody mary and the crab benedict. Napped. Went back to Superfest with Toph and Cecil, hung out on dock and watched fireworks. Better display than Friday night. Met Cecil’s friend Steve who is in from Tampa or something. We were hanging out and then Steve had to go. He wouldn’t tell us what he needed to do or where he was going. Now, I don’t care that people do drugs and have to track down dealers and make people wait while that goes down, but lets not be cagey and evasive. Just be honest or lie, but don’t try to be mysterious.

Started walking toward East Bay Club. Everyone needs to piss except me, so I get in line to buy a Gyro. After about 10 minutes Steve, whom I have just met, comes up to me and says “We’ve finished peeing and this food doesn’t look good. Let’s go.” I looked at him and told him “You need to get the fuck away from me.”

We made it back to the East Bay Club and lose Steve. Start having fun. On the way home, stop by Krispy Kreme and get a dozen. Think about buying a Krispy Kreme T-shirt . Watch Television for about 30 minutes. Go to sleep very late.

Sunday

Watch ‘Wishmaster 3’ on the SciFi channel while reading the New York Times.

Toph and Cecil go to game. I take down the Christmas tree while watching professional poker. Talk to Them via cellphone.

The Eagles fans were threatening to riot during the first half because—while the score is zero, zero—the scoreboard suddenly reads Pats: 6 Eagles: 0. They are screaming such things as “You can’t do that this is th’fucking Superbowl.” As if this technical glitch will somehow actually award the Patriots those points. The referees will scratch their heads and say ‘there is nothing we can do about this. We have to let them keep those points.” Somehow, miracle of miracles, the scoreboard is corrected.

The Halftime show horrifies and offends millions around the country by being pedestrian and lame.

Around the rest of the world, people are troubled by the American flags waving during Live and Let Die. The question is asked “Have Americans really stopped saying live and let live and now have decided to give in and cry, say live and let die?”

Bush Junior answers with a simple “yes.”

When the Eagles lose, I go to bed happy.

Monday

5 Comments:

Erik: Too bad our paths didn't cross on Friday. I saw TJ on the Riverwalk lugging beer, but by then my friends and I were heading out because my roommate, who drove our group, had to get to work by 6AM. (Wish I had known that, I could have drove on my own)! We were at the East Bay Club earlier, just before fire works...we got in free too...maybe it was the same connection(Glenn)? It was pretty dead around that time. Anyhow, sounds like you had more fun with the festivities than I did. I worked 2-10 on Saturday and watched the game at a friends house on Sunday. HDTV is pretty cool. BTW, I saw McCartney's tour in 1993 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, are you sure he did one in 1994 too? Dan

The only reason I remember there was a McCartney tour in '93 was because it was the weekend I moved to KC for my first "real" job after college. They hadn't finished cleaning out the apartment I'd signed a lease on, and had said it would take a couple days more to ready it. So I was forced to scout out a cheap hotel. I found one out by Arrowhead and I noticed the flashing billboard saying McCartney was playing that night. Since I didn't know a soul in KC, and the hotel was rather depressing, I went over to see about tickets and ended up in the 15th row.

I couldn't remember the year of other concerts I've attended without a ticket stub or some other concrete reminder, especially those Jefferson Airplane and Allman Brothers concerts...those nights are a bit hazy.--Dan